2013 in review

What constitutes a news outlet and who these days is a journalist? We assess the year's big media stories and developments, including how the Snowden case exemplifies current changes in journalism. Plus, an overview of the highs and lows of our local media.

Credits

Comments (5)

j :

19 Dec 2013 8:18:20pm

I have to disagree with the conclusion one of the participants drew – that News Corpse’ media blitz bore no fruit in some key electorates, because its mantras didn’t seem to be reflected in the swings.

With all due respect, this measure is overly simplistic. The more meaningful measure would be a comparison with what the results would have been had News Corpse not existed, and my guess is that the results would have been far more favourable to the non-Coalition parties.

This is anecdotal I know, and a very tiny sample to boot, but I lost count of the number of pensioners on my Meals-on-Wheels rounds during the campaign (most on basic pensions) who would recite back to me, word-for-word, the headlines from Murdoch’s tabloids, that the economy was in crisis, the mining and carbon taxes were ruining the economy etc, and making it plain they were lined up to see the gaff-prone suppository of all solutions in The Lodge. I simply don’t believe you don’t get a bang for your buck by saturating the media with poisonous headlines for weeks on end.

Geoff :

crank :

25 Dec 2013 10:26:09am

Precisely! We labour under the myth, a lie really, that we live in a 'free' country, but that supposed 'freedom' is mediated, like everything else, by money power. In fact the most 'free' person in this country is a foreigner and repudiator of his country of birth, Rupert Murdoch, and lesser degrees of 'freedom' apply to his minions, whose utterly bigoted and biased hate and fear-mongering poses as 'journalism'. This is most destructively and poignantly illustrated by News Ltd's fanatical hatred of environmentalism and environmentalists, and the poisonous fruit of that patho-psychological detestation can be seen all about us as the most ideologically extreme, and, in my opinion, evil regime in our history, sets about destroying every environmental gain of the last forty years, and thereby makes the destruction of our children's world almost certain. In my opinion no crime in history comes close to this.

Julian Asaint :

19 Dec 2013 8:18:25pm

I have to disagree with the conclusion one of the participants drew – that News Corpse’ media blitz bore no fruit in some key electorates, because its mantras didn’t seem to be reflected in the swings.

With all due respect, this measure is overly simplistic. The more meaningful measure would be a comparison with what the results would have been had News Corpse not existed, and my guess is that the results would have been far more favourable to the non-Coalition parties.

This is anecdotal I know, and a very tiny sample to boot, but I lost count of the number of pensioners on my Meals-on-Wheels rounds during the campaign (most on basic pensions) who would recite back to me, word-for-word, the headlines from Murdoch’s tabloids, that the economy was in crisis, the mining and carbon taxes were ruining the economy etc, and making it plain they were lined up to see the gaff-prone suppository of all solutions in The Lodge. I simply don’t believe you don’t get a bang for your buck by saturating the media with poisonous headlines for weeks on end.

crank :

25 Dec 2013 10:19:32am

All that needs be said about the MSM in this country is that it remains exclusively Rightwing, that the majority Empire, News Ltd is growing ever more hysterical, extreme and, in my opinion, malignant in its hate-mongering excess and that the MSM behaves exactly as Herman and Chomsky (and many others) described, as a propaganda system for the power interests of its entirely Rightwing ownership.